Gold gets Christmastastic this December, mates!

UKTV Original Two-Part Special

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Hi gherkins! It's quite liderally Mike Smash here, Britain's most popadabbadobulous DJ! This year I'll be hosting Smashie's Xmastastic Playlist on Gold, a-featurin' all your favourite Xmas songs and some of the famous Smash wise-words and philosophy type stuff.

It's a great honour for me to host Xmas, something that until now, only Jesus has done. And the whole thing is for charidee, except it isn't. So join me, Mike Smash, on Gold this Xmas and let's have some poptastic festive fun.

Yes, the UK's most fantabulous DJ and one half of everyone's favourite fab radio duo, Mike Smash (Paul Whitehouse) takes time out from his charity work and returns to TV screens this Christmas with his ding-dong-merrily-on-high-iest festive favourite tunes. Smashie's Xmastastic Playlist (2x60') is a brand new UKTV Original that will air across two days in December 2017.

Simulcast between Gold and Smash's new broadcasting home Radio Hush, this two-part special will feature the nation's best-loved Christmas classics, alongside some lesser known oddities from Smashie's sonic stocking - and all will be introduced by the former Radio Fab FM DJ in his unique style.

Smashie's Xmastastic Playlist is written by Paul Whitehouse and Dave Cummings. The two-part special is ordered for UKTV by Richard Watsham, director of commissioning, and Steve North, general manager for entertainment and comedy. Commissioned by Joe McVey, it's produced by North One, John Quinn is executive producer and the director is Sean Doherty.

Joe McVey, commissioning editor for UKTV, said,

It is quite liderally an honour to work with the legendary DJ Mike Smash on his Christmas playlist. In an historic first we're teaming up with the Solent area's premium radio station marketed at fans of late era glam rock, Hush FM, for a live simulcast on Gold. We can't wait to see what appears on Mike's playlist, though I'm sure our viewers will be able to have a reasonable stab at guessing.

Steve North said,

In its 25th year, Gold has gone from strength to strength and continues to attract some fantastic talent. We're really excited to end 2017 on a high by working with Paul on bringing back one of UK comedy's most iconic characters.

John Quinn said,

For many of us, some of the rosiest Christmas Day memories from childhood were those old Top Of The Pops specials, played out during the build-up to a turkey dinner. Who better to recapture the essence of that classic festive experience - and its actual, often cringing embarrassment - than Mike Smash himself. Who doesn't love Smashie?

Smashie's Xmastastic Playlist is another hugely exciting commission for Gold as the channel celebrates its 25th birthday. This year has seen the channel make the front pages with retrospective shows The Story of Only Fools and Horses and David Jason: My Life on Screen, and also win a prestigious Rose d'Or for Henry IX, the brand new scripted comedy from Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Star-studded UKTV Original Murder on the Blackpool Express, led by Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson, will air on Gold next month, while Simon Callow returns for a second series of The Rebel. Next year, Gold will celebrate Victoria Wood with an exclusive three-part documentary series dinnerladies diaries.

In 2016, UKTV committed over £150m to new programming which has resulted in a 40% increase in entertainment commissions and the biggest commissioned slate in UKTV's 25 year history with successful launches, award-winning returning series and around 50 shows currently in production.

Notes to Editors

Sky 110, Virgin 126, BT and TalkTalk 408 On demand on Sky, Virgin and Now TV.

About UKTV

UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching over 40m viewers every month.

The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.

Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.

For over 25 years, North One has been recognised as a global producer of world class entertainment, factual, digital, sport and live event programming.

Starting out as the sports television wing of the Chrysalis Media Group, building a name with shows like C4's Football Italia, NBA, World Rally Championship host broadcast and ITV's Formula 1 coverage, the company soon spread into other genres, with factual entertainment brands such as the long-running car show Fifth Gear and tech series The Gadget Show. Among a myriad of other programming, more recently North One has scored hits with The Story of Only Fools & Horses (Gold), Storage Hunters UK (Dave), Paul Hollywood's Big Continental Road Trip (BBC), Travel Man (C4), Ronnie O'Sullivan's American Hustle (History) and all of the acclaimed Guy Martin TV projects (C4), as well as MotoGP (BT Sport) and award-winning coverage of the Isle of Man TT (ITV).